Aira, Cesar 1949-
AIRA, Cesar 1949-
PERSONAL:
Born 1949, in Coronel Pringles, Argentina.
ADDRESSES:
Home—Buenos Aires, Argentina. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Interzona, Lavalle 750 Piso 19B, Buenos Aires, Argentina 1047.
CAREER:
Novelist and author. Has worked as a translator, and lectured at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Rosary.
WRITINGS:
Ema, la cautiva, Editorial de Belgrano (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1981.
La luz Argentina, Centro Editor de America Latina (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1983.
Canto castrato, J. Vergara Editor (Barcelona, Spain), 1984.
Los fantasmas: Novela, Emece Editores (Rosario, Argentina), 1990.
El bautismo: Novela, Grupo Editor Latinoamericano (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1991.
Copi, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 1991.
La liebre, Emece Editores (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1991, translation by Nick Caistor published as The Hare, Serpent's Tail (New York, NY), 1998.
Embalse, Emece Editores (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1992.
El llanto, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 1992.
La prueba, Emece Editores (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1992.
El Volante, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 1992.
Como me hice monja, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 1993.
Diario de la hepatitis, Bajo la Luna Nueva (Rosario, Argentina), 1993.
La guerra de los gimnasios, Emece Editores (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1993.
Madre e hijo, Bajo la Luna Nueva (Rosario, Argentina), 1993.
La costurera y el viento, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 1994.
Los misterios de Rosario, Emece Editores (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1994.
Argentina: The Great Estancias, photographs by Tomas de Elia and Cristina Cassinelli de Corral, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 1995.
Los dos payasos, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 1995.
La fuente, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 1995.
La abeja, Emece Editores (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1996.
El mensajero, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 1996.
Dante y reina, Mate (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1997.
La serpiente, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 1997.
Taxol: precedido de Duchamp en Mexico y la Broma, Ediciones Simurg (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1997.
Alejandra Pizarnik, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 1998, Ediciones Omega (Barcelona, Spain), 2001.
Las curas milagrosas del doctor Aira, Ediciones Simurg (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1998.
La mendiga, Mondadori (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1998.
El sueno, Emece (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1998.
La trompeta de Mimbre, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 1998.
El congreso de literatura, Tusquets Editores (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1999.
Un episodio en la vida del Pintor Viajero, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 2000.
El juego de los mundos: novela de ciencia ficcion, El Broche (La Plata, Argentina), 2000.
Diccionario de autores Latinoamericanos, Emece (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2001.
Un sueno realizado, Alfaguara (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2001.
Las tres fechas, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 2001.
La villa, Emece Editores (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2001.
El mago, Mondadori (Barcelona, Spain), 2002.
Fragmentos de un diario en los Alpes, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 2002.
Varamo, Editorial Anagrama (Barcelona, Spain), 2002.
(With others) Argentina, un País desperdiciado, Taurus (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2003.
El tilo, Beatriz Viterbo Editora (Rosario, Argentina), 2003.
Yo era una chica moderna, Interzona (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2004.
Author's works have been translated into French, Italian, and Spanish.
ADAPTATIONS:
La prueba adapted for film as Suddenly, 2002.
SIDELIGHTS:
Cesar Aira is one of Argentina's most prolific authors, publishing more than forty works, including novels, novellas, biographies, essays, screenplays and short stories. His works have been translated into other languages and published in France, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, and the United States. He has also taught courses on literature and writing at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Rosary.
One of Aira's first critically acclaimed works is the 1984 novella Canto castrato. Published in Argentina and Spain, in both French and Spanish, the book is a historical novel whose main character is Il Micchino, a noted Italian castrato from the 1730s. The storyline follows Aira's protagonist from his vacation home in Italy to engagements in Vienna and Petersburg. Other characters include his Austrian impresario, a composer, a Spanish monk, a costume-designing nun, and other young castrati.
Reviewers of Canto castrato found Aira's work to be compelling and well-written. The novel "combines impressive historical and musicological erudition with memorable description," wrote Times Literary Supplement contributor Chris Andrews.
In 1992, Aira wrote another groundbreaking novella, La prueba. Aira's work tells the story of two lesbian punks, Mao and Lenin, who kidnap a young lingerie store clerk named Marcia. In turn, Marcia ends up falling in love with Mao. The three women band together to take hostage a grocery store and its shoppers.
In 1995, Aira wrote Argentina: The Great Estancias, his first book produced by an American publisher. The book features twenty-two Argentine cattle ranches, shown through photographs of each ranch's buildings, gardens, and pastures. To accompany the photography of Tomas de Elia and Cristina Cassinelli de Corral, Aira writes about each place's history, as well as the overall history of Argentina's cattle ranches and their influence on the nation's economy.
In 1998, Serpents Tail Publishing translated into English Aira's 1991 novel La liebre as The Hare. In this work Aira tells the story of an English naturalist searching for the rare Legibrian Hare in Argentina. The translation was written by travel author Nick Caistor.
In 2002, Aira wrote and published another critically acclaimed novel, Varamo. The main character Varamo, a middle-aged office clerk, is paid to write a poem, even though poetry and literature are subjects he knows little about. His efforts turn out to be a work both innovative and avant-garde. The narrator in the story brings up overlying questions about the status of fiction, narrative voice, intentionality, literary criticism, and the relation between profit motives and literature.
Reviewers praised Aira's talents with the release of Varamo. In a critique of the book, World Literature Today contributor Will H. Corral wrote, "Prolific, self-plagiarizing, humorous, and a vastly capable prose writer, Aira liberates morality and intimacy as the basic forms of freedom."
Turning to the forms of autobiography and memoir, Aira wrote and published El tilo in 2003. The book begins with a description of the enormous lime tree (el tilo) that stands in the town square of Coronel Pringles, Argentina, where Aira grew up. Aira's father used to collect the lime tree's blossoms to make a sedative tea. The author uses this image from his past to transition into memories of a childhood marked by the 1955 Revolucion Libertadora that ousted Eva Peron. His father, a devoted Peronísta, was devastated by this.
Most critics again lauded Aira's efforts in El tilo. Some found Aira's ability to channel his childhood thoughts so effectively to be one compelling part of the book. "El tilo is both a portrait of the artist as a child and a lucid analysis of a family's social trajectory," commented Chris Andrews in the Times Literary Supplement, adding that Aira "brilliantly re-creates the mental mechanisms deployed in child's play."
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Booklist, January 1, 1996, Brad Hooper, review of Argentina: The Great Estancias, p. 770.
Latin American Literary Review, July-December 1999, Patrick J. O'Connor, "Cesar Aira's Simple Lesbians: Passing La prueba," p. 149.
Pregonero, September 17, 1998, Rafael Roncal, review of Como me hice monja, p. 12.
Times Literary Supplement, May 14, 2004, Chris Andrews, reviews of Canto castrato and El tilo.
Wall Street Journal, December 7, 1995, Raymond Sokolov, review of Argentina: The Great Estancias, p. 12.
World Literature Today, April-June 2003, Will H. Corral, review of Varamo, p. 152.
ONLINE
Literatura Argentina Contemporanea,http://www.literatura.org/ (December 8, 2004), "Cesar Aira."
Serpent's Tail Publishing Web site,http://www.serpentstail.com/ (December 8, 2004).*